COLUMBUS, Ohio — The comebacks can’t be taken lightly, if the Flyers have shown anything lately. They’re a dangerous team late in close games.

Successful playoff pushes, however, tend not to need revivals as often as the Flyers do.

Despite having the ice tilted against them to start the third period against a team that had beaten them three times already this season, Travis Sanheim scored with nearly seven minutes to go to tie the Columbus Blue Jackets. Ultimately Seth Jones won it in overtime 4-3 to make a Flyers playoff push that much more unlikely.

“It was nice to get the one point and battle back,” Sanheim said. “This is a tough place to play. It definitely would have been nice to get the win there.”

“Unfortunately we lost in the OT but it’s a good point,” added Jake Voracek, who had a goal and an assist against his old team and the Flyers’ old goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky. “It’s a tough building to play in. Obviously we would like to have the other one but that’s the way it goes in overtime.”

Brian Elliott was a bit shaky with his glove at times, unable to keep the puck in the pocket, but stopped 36 of the 40 shots he faced.

With the Blue Jackets’ firepower, the Flyers were on their heels at times and allowed some good looks for Columbus.

“Looseness in our coverage,” interim coach Scott Gordon explained. “We were defending from the outside in instead of the opposite. That’s the only time we had problems in our zone is when we got ourselves out to the perimeter and didn’t recover to the middle or we played it out higher or wider than we should have been.”

While the Flyers had a couple of opportunities they couldn’t capitalize on, there’s also a couple that Elliott might want back.

He couldn’t control the rebound of Boone Jenner’s shot, so the rebound was sent to Oliver Bjorkstrand for the Blue Jackets’ first goal. Their third was from all the way out at the point by defenseman Scott Harrington.

“I had a good view of it and then we h ad a couple guys kinda skate into their position but it kind of happened at the perfect time where they were crossing lanes,” Elliott explained. “That’s kind of what happened on that one.”

That makes four losses and a season series sweep by the Blue Jackets.

In an 82-game season there are plenty of spaces to look for more. Those eight points up for grabs is one of those areas.

“You can nitpick throughout the season,” Voracek said. “There was a game in Calgary where we were up two goals and lost. So many games that got away from us. Obviously you want to have a better record against divisional opponents but it is what it is now. We are where we started before the game. It’s a tough loss but it could have been worse.”

Here are four more takeaways from Thursday’s game…

Panarin has his way

As much as the Blue Jackets loaded up at the trade deadline, their biggest asset is the rental they already had. Artemi Panarin had a goal and an assist in the game and there’s a very good chance the Blue Jackets can’t keep him. John Davidson, the team’s president of hockey operations, said on SiriusXM radio this week that the team is under the assumption that both Panarin and Bobrovsky will leave as free agents.

There has been talk that the Flyers would be among the interested teams and they’ll certainly have the salary cap space to pay him if he were to be interested in Philadelphia. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported earlier this season the Flyers tried to acquire Panarin at the 2018 draft.

His skills were on display from the 5-hole goal he snuck through Elliott to drawing a defender to him and feeding Jones for the winner.

“He’s one of the best talents in the league, that’s for sure,” Jake Voracek said. “You never know where he’s gonna go with that puck. He’s really good on his edges and he really sells every other option that you think he’s gonna do. Great play by him.”

Replays gone wild

The game went 2-1 three different times in the first period as two goals were called back and one play was reviewed and upheld. At 10:45 the Flyers challenged the Blue Jackets’ first goal when Boone Jenner appeared to make contact with Elliott before passing to Oliver Bjorkstrand but the NHL said that Radko Gudas pushed Jenner into Elliott, so the goal was allowed.

It appeared Bjorkstrand made it 2-1 when a puck bounced off Ivan Provorov and in, but a video review prompted by the league showed that when the rebound of Bjorkstrand’s shot came loose, he kicked it toward the net and in off Provorov, so the goal was disallowed.

James van Riemsdyk thought he made it 2-1 also and was robbed of a highlight-reel goal. He was at net-front and couldn’t separate the puck from his skate from the goal, so he moved his foot back, pulled the puck between his legs and shot it in. Only the Blue Jackets challenged that the play was offside and won the challenge.

“It was a weird period,” said Sanheim, who finally scored the first legal 2-1 goal. “There were a lot of challenges and things went ways we weren’t necessarily expecting, but it was nice to get that one in. You just have to try and stay composed and not let it bother you too much. Credit to us for sticking with it and we got rewarded for it.”

Sigh of relief

With six minutes left in the first period, the Flyers were in for a scare. Provorov fell as Panarin took a shot in front of him. As he got up, the shot hit him in the left arm and he held it close to his body, keeping only his right hand on the stick. At the end of his shift he went off to the locker room for repairs and eventually returned.

“I fell before the play,” he said. “I skated into a rivet on the ice. My leg came under me and then I fell and then Panarin’s shot hit me in the arm.”

If the Flyers were to lose Provorov, their defense corps would be in serious trouble. Luckily it doesn’t look like he’s in line to miss his first NHL game.

“It was just a bruise, so he came back and played,” Gordon said, “and I thought he played pretty well.”

Voracek wears the ‘A’

With Wayne Simmonds having been traded Monday and Andrew MacDonald a healthy scratch, Jake Voracek had an ‘A’ stitched onto his jersey for the first time with the Flyers. The addition of the letter symbolizing the alternate captain is largely symbolic. He’s been part of the Flyers’ leadership group for years and even wore the extra vowel under Craig Berube’s coaching tenure a couple times.

“With me, obviously it’s a privilege but I’m not gonna change,” Voracek said. “If I wanted to talk, I always talked. If I wanted to be quiet, I was quiet. Obviously it’s a privilege to wear an ‘A’ in the National Hockey League but we have different things to worry about right now.”